Out Of This World Solar
The Next Space Race: Farming Solar Power in the Cosmos; Scientists are making the big push to send electricity to Earthlings from the final frontier.
Anna Bitong, June 27, 2016 (TakePart)
“…[A once-implausible idea—collecting solar energy in space and sending it to Earth—is now the goal of scientists around the world, marking a new space race that could end reliance on dwindling fossil fuels, fundamentally shift power in the geopolitical conflicts they have sparked, and meet the rising demand for energy from the developing world…Solar power satellites introduce the profound capability to send clean, constant energy nearly anywhere in the world, which would be huge for the1.2 billion people who have no access to electricity and the 1 billion who do not have reliable electricity networks…[It] would cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars for a demonstration and billions of dollars for an operational system…[But ongoing breakthroughs in technology can harness space solar power for use on Earth] within the next decade…[A proposal to use solar power satellites to capture sunlight in space, convert it to microwave energy (a form of electromagnetic radiation), and wirelessly transmit it to rectennae (antennae that can convert the energy to electricity) on Earth won a major State Department competition earlier this year]…” click here for more
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